Johannes Stark

Johannes Stark in 1919.

Johannes Stark (April 15, 1874 - June 21, 1957) was a prominent 20th century physicist, and a Physics Nobel Prize laureate.

Born in Schickenhof, Bavaria, (now Zwettl), Stark was educated at the Bayreuth Gymnasium (grammar school) and later in Regensburg. His collegiate education began at the University of Munich, where he studied physics, mathematics, chemistry, and crystallography. His tenure at that college began in 1894; he graduated in 1897, with his doctoral dissertation regarding some physics subjects of Isaac Newton.

He worked in various positions at the Physics Institute of his alma mater until 1900, when he became an unsalaried lecturer at the University of Göttingen. In 1908, Stark became professor at the prestigious RWTH Aachen University. He worked and researched at physics departments of several universities, including the University of Greifswald, until 1922. In 1919, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his "discovery of the Doppler effect in canal rays and the splitting of spectral lines in electric fields" (the latter is known as the Stark effect). From 1933 until his retirement in 1939, Stark was elected President of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, while also President of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

Stark published more than 300 papers, mainly regarding electricity and other such topics. He received various awards including the Nobel Prize, the Baumgartner Prize of the Vienna Academy of Sciences (1910), the Vahlbruch Prize of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences (1914), and the Matteucci Medal of the Rome Academy. He married Luise Uepler, and they had five children.

Probably his best known contribution to the field of physics is the Stark effect, which he discovered in 1913.

Affiliation with National Socialism

The cover of a 1932 Danish translation of Stark's "Adolf Hitler: Aims and Personality".

During the Nazi regime, Stark attempted to become the Führer of German physics through the Deutsche Physik ("German physics") movement (along with Philipp Lenard) against the "Jewish physics" of Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg (who wasn't Jewish). After Werner Heisenberg defended Albert Einstein's theory of relativity Stark wrote an angry article in the SS newspaper Das Schwarze Korps, calling Heisenberg a "White Jew".

On August 21 1934 Stark wrote to physicist and fellow Nobel laureate Max von Laue to toe the party line or else. The letter was signed off with a "Heil Hitler." For copies of this correspondence see Arnold Reisman TURKEY'S MODERNIZATION: Refugees from Nazism and Atatürk’s Vision. http://www.newacademia.com/turkeys_modernization/

In his 1934 book Nationalsozialismus und Wissenschaft (English: "National Socialism and Science") Stark maintained that the priority of the scientist was to serve the nation -- thus, the important fields of research were those that could help German arms production and industry. He attacked theoretical physics as "Jewish" and stressed that scientific positions in Nazi Germany should only be held by pure-blooded Germans.

Stark also maintained that Jewish scientists lacked "the aptitude for true creative activity in the natural sciences."

In 1947, following the defeat of Germany in World War II, Stark was classified as a "Major Offender" and received a sentence of four years imprisonment by a denazification court.

Publications by Johannes Stark

• Die Entladung der Elektricität von galvanisch glühender Kohle in verdünntes Gas. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik und Chemie', Neue Folge, Band 68). Leipzig, 1899
• Der elektrische Strom zwischen galvanisch glühender Kohle und einem Metall durch verdünntes Gas. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik und Chemie', Neue Folge, Band 68). Leipzig, 1899
• Aenderung der Leitfähigkeit von Gasen durch einen stetigen elektrischen Strom. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik', 4. Folge, Band 2). Leipzig, 1900
• Ueber den Einfluss der Erhitzung auf das elektrische Leuchten eines verdünnten Gases. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik', 4. Folge, Band 1). Leipzig, 1900
• Ueber elektrostatische Wirkungen bei der Entladung der Elektricität in verdünnten Gasen. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Annalen der Physik', 4. Folge, Band 1). Leipzig, 1900
• Kritische Bemerkungen zu der Mitteilung der Herren Austin und Starke über Kathodenstrahlreflexion. Sonderabdruck aus 'Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft', Jahrgang 4, Nr. 8). Braunschweig, 1902
• Prinzipien der Atomdynamik. 1. Teil. Die elektrischen Quanten., 1910
• Schwierigkeiten für die Lichtquantenhypothese im Falle der Emission von Serienlinien. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft', Jg. XVI, Nr 6). Braunschweig, 1914
• Bemerkung zum Bogen - und Funkenspektrum des Heliums. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft.', Jg. XVI, Nr. 10). Braunschweig, 1914
• Folgerungen aus einer Valenzhypothese. III. Natürliche Drehung der Schwingungsebene des Lichtes. (Sonderabdruck aus `Jahrbuch der Radioaktivität und Elektronik', Heft 2, Mai 1914), Leipzig, 1914
• Methode zur gleichzeitigen Zerlegung einer Linie durch das elektrische und das magnetische Feld. (Sonderabdruck aus 'Verhandlungen der Deutschen Physikalischen Gesellschaft.', Jg. XVI, Nr. 7). Braunschweig, 1914
• Die gegenwärtige Krise der deutschen Physik, ("The Thoroughgoing Crisis in German Physics") 1922
• Natur der chemischen Valenzkräfte, 1922
• Hitlergeist und Wissenschaft, 1924 zusammen mit Philipp Lenard
• Die Axialität der Lichtemission und Atomstruktur, Berlin 1927
• Atomstruktur und Atombindung, A. Seydel, Berlin 1928
• Atomstrukturelle Grundlagen der Stickstoffchemie., Leipzig, 1931
• Nationalsozialismus und Katholische Kirche, ("National Socialism and the Catholic Church") 1931
• Nationalsozialismus und Katholische Kirche. II. Teil: Antwort auf Kundgebungen der deutschen Bischöfe., 1931
• Nationale Erziehung, 1932
• Nationalsozialismus und Wissenschaft ("National Socialism and Science") 1934
• Physik der Atomoberfläche, 1940
• Jüdische und deutsche Physik, ("Jewish and German Physics") with Wilhelm Müller, written at the University of Munich in 1941
• Nationale Erziehung, Zentrumsherrschaft und Jesuitenpolitik, undated
• Hitlers Ziele und Persönlichkeit ("Hitler's Aims and Personality"), undated